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macOS 10.13.1 High Sierra Offers Minor Fixes and More Emoji

Along with updates to iOS 11.1, watchOS 4.1, and tvOS 11.1, Apple has released macOS 10.13.1 High Sierra. It’s a surprisingly minor update that adds support for 70 new emoji to stay in sync with iOS 11.1 (see “iOS 11.1 Brings Bug Fixes and New Emoji,” 31 October 2017), fixes three bugs, and addresses nine security vulnerabilities. The download is 2.11 GB in size.

The bugs fixed could have caused Bluetooth to be unavailable during Apple Pay transactions, caused problems when syncing Microsoft Exchange messages in Mail, and prevented Spotlight from accepting keyboard input at times.

Perhaps the main reason to update from 10.13.0 to 10.13.1 is its inclusion of fixes for the KRACK exploits (see “Wi-Fi Security Flaw Not As Bad As It’s KRACKed Up To Be,” 17 October 2017). We recommend waiting a day or two to be safe and then updating. Be sure to make a full backup before updating because on one of our machines, login items and a variety of other settings seem to have been lost in the update process.

That leaves the question of whether now is the time to upgrade to High Sierra from an earlier version of macOS. Our take is that 10.13.1 doesn’t change enough to affect your previous decision — if you weren’t comfortable upgrading to High Sierra before 10.13.1 shipped, its existence doesn’t add much new information. At best, it’s a sign that Apple doesn’t feel there are many problems in High Sierra.

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